Third Time's the Charm
by Nabob
Summary: Rin begins life for a third time.


**Third Time's the Charm**

_Luck exists in the leftovers._

– Japanese Proverb

* * *

Rin is certain that she is dying.

But, not wanting to alarm Jaken-sama, who is so excitable and always worrying, she creeps off to the woods, hoping Sesshoumaru-sama is too far away to smell her. She doesn't wish to worry him either, for he is busy doing important Sesshoumaru-sama things, and he might blame Jaken-sama and punish him. Yes, it's better if she does this alone. Besides, things are always easier the second time.

So, wrapping her yukata awkwardly between her legs as if she is a swaddled child, she hurries from the little camp, but pauses first to kiss the toad who mutters words of undying love and service in his sleep.

Yet she is still alive by morning, and is wondering how long will it take for her to die, and will it be painful like last time? when Sesshoumaru-sama finds her.

There is a crease in his brow, distorting his marking, like a fold in a fresh sheet of parchment. His nostrils flare, his hand already resting on Tensaiga's hilt, and as he stares at her, huddling in the uncomfortable embrace of a tree's roots, bleeding from between her legs, his fingers curl and tighten around it.

"Rin," he says, and she bursts into tears.

"I'm sorry, Sesshoumaru-sama! I didn't want to worry Sesshoumaru-sama or Jaken-sama! I'm sorry." She squeezes her legs closer together, pulling her knees into her chest.

He shifts, almost imperceptibly, as if to step towards her, but instead looks over his shoulder, calling, "Jaken!"

The toad appears remarkably quickly, panting and wheezing and yelling, "Rin! You stupid, stupid girl, how could you –" He stops abruptly, seeing her. His jaw drops.

"Jaken." The sound of his master's voice makes him jump, his eyes and mouth still wide in shock. Excuses he's been thinking up during his entire search bubble up on his tongue, but he is cut off before he can even begin.

"Get Ah-Un. We are leaving. Now."

* * *

The village is clustered on a hill, overlooking a quilt of rice paddies that spreads out over the land for almost as far as Rin can see.

Sesshoumaru-sama strides toward it purposefully (for that is how Sesshoumaru-sama always walks) while Jaken-sama follows dutifully behind (though he grumbles and says mean things about humans as he does so).

Atop Ah-Un, Rin feels a strange qualm inside her stomach, twisting and twisting, an invisible hand wringing out her insides like a rag. Rin never questions Sesshoumaru-sama, least of all about where they go; she simply follows. But Sesshoumaru-sama never, never brings them to places where humans live. He will sometimes send Jaken-sama to bring Rin to such places to steal clothes and food, but never has he gone himself, and Rin feels the threads of worry weave round her heart.

When they enter the village, people stare, scream, and run, and one little boy even pisses himself as they walk by. Sesshoumaru-sama doesn't seem to notice, though Jaken-sama glares both left and right, shaking his staff and cursing those who even dare to look upon Sesshoumaru-sama.

It does not take long before the streets are quiet and deserted, though Rin can see faces peering through windows and behind corners. She looks down and tries to cover her stained yukata with her hands. Her back and groin have begun to ache, and she is sure it cannot be too much longer now. She wishes Sesshoumaru-sama wouldn't make such a fuss.

They climb the steps up to the shrine at the top of the hill, and an old woman, fat and half-blind, stands in the courtyard, waiting for them.

Sesshoumaru-sama stops in front of her and says, "You must fix the girl." She stares up at him with her one eye, sending Jaken into an apoplexy of rage at her insolence, but neither she nor Sesshoumaru-sama pay the toad youkai any heed.

She purses her lips, but does not refuse. No one refuses Sesshoumaru-sama.

Slowly and stiffly on her rusted joints, she walks up to Ah-Un, and places her hand on Rin's knee. Rin stares at it, thinking of the dead leaves that cover the ground in autumn, brown and papery thin. But the old woman is staring at Rin, at the dried blood on her legs and her clothes, and at her hands, pressed into her privates. Rin hangs her head, wishing the woman wouldn't stare.

"Are you alright, child?" the woman asks, and her voice is rough and warm and startlingly alive.

Rin looks up at her, her secret bleeding through her fingers, and whispers, "I'm dying."

Rin does not think it is funny at all, but the old woman starts laughing.

* * *

A clean and dry Rin drifts from her sleep lazily, her dreams slowly ebbing. She can hear voices, and opens her eyes, staring at the shoji screen before her, and she is filled with fleeting confusion and apprehension at the sight, missing the smell of grass and earth, and the endless ceiling of the sky.

Bolting upright, she is knifed by a vicious cramp, and memory rushes in, assuring her. Tentatively, she eases off her futon and stands, shuffling to the shoji screen, the subdued sound of conversation growing more distinct. Deep, level tones reach her ears, and her heart leaps – Sesshoumaru-sama!

She pulls the shoji open, a smile stretched across her face.

Sesshoumaru-sama is standing at the far side of the room, the old woman (Kaede-sama, Rin remembers) facing him, her back to Rin. They both turn to look at her instantly, and something in their faces causes the smile to waver and slip from Rin's mouth.

"Sesshoumaru-sama?" she asks, again feeling the squirming of worry in her gut.

"You must stay here, Rin," he says, his eyes briefly flicking to Kaede-sama, then Rin. She is not sure if she sees his mouth move or not, but when he looks at her, it seems as if he smiles.

But then there is a rustle of silk and a flash of white, and the soft click of the closing shoji tells Rin that he is gone.

* * *

Kaede-sama is very nice, Rin thinks, but she snores when she sleeps and sometimes farts so loud that it makes Rin start. But she is nice.

The food is very good too, and Rin wears clean clothes, bright red and white, which she likes to feel with her fingers, running them over the smooth folds. She knows these are all very nice things, but she misses the feel of grass and dirt beneath her bare feet.

Kaede-sama finds her sleeping on the porch many nights, or just sitting there and staring at the moon.

When she asks Rin what she is doing, she replies, "I'm waiting for Sesshoumaru-sama."

Rin doesn't mind her duties. The work is sometimes hard, and there are nights when she falls into bed, her back aching from hours spent bent over, sweeping and scrubbing. But her body is hardened from years on the road, her limbs young and strong, and she quickly becomes used to the labour, though she is slower to learn how to cook and pray and sew.

Kaede-sama teaches her many things, and Rin listens and watches, fascinated (and even a little frightened). It has been so long since she's lived with humans that she can barely even recall what it was like before. Her strongest memories are of death, hunger, and of stinking men and fists. Kaede-sama's world is so clean and strange, that Rin is both entranced and wary, sure that she is not meant to fit it. The only place she really fit was at Sesshoumaru's side, and he is gone.

* * *

Gathering herbs is Rin's favourite thing to do, when she can walk out into the forest and smell its dark and secret smells, and hike up the hills and feel the grass dancing against her legs. She likes picking the herbs and memorizing them, the way they look, smell and feel. Kaede-sama comes with her when she stays close to the village, but her body has grown stiff and slow, and she often sends Rin out to find herbs on her own, the old miko's words drawing pictures of the herbs for her.

On some days, Miroku-sama will come with her, especially if she goes far. Rin likes Miroku-sama. He smiles and laughs and always tells her that she is too pretty to be a shrine maiden, and where is she hiding all her suitors? which makes her blush and laugh. (Rin thinks Miroku-sama is too handsome and too married to say such things, especially when it makes her heart pitter-patter so.) And, even though she knows it is not right to feel so, she is comforted by the empty sleeve that hangs from his right shoulder.

He sees her staring at it one day and shows it to her, and she sees that his arm is not completely gone, just his hand. The stub is smooth, almost waxy to the touch when Rin reaches out with her fingers and runs them across the skin.

"Does it hurt?"

"No," he says, and smiles.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Inuyasha cut it off." He says it so calmly, that at first she does not fully realize what he means, but when she does, her mouth drops open in shock.

"But – but why would he do that? That's not very nice at all," Rin says, frowning and thinking that this Inuyasha cuts off far too many people's limbs and appendages.

Miroku-sama laughs. "Oh no, I'm actually quite grateful to him. He did it to save my life, you see." He looks at her directly, and there is a seriousness in his voice that is not usually there.

"Oh," Rin says, feeling silly and flushed at his stare. She shakes her head and puts on a smile for him. "Well that's alright then." And without thought, she grabs his handless wrist and pulls him, laughing, down the hill, basket bouncing on her hip.

* * *

When Rin first meets Sango-san, her belly is a small hump beneath her yukata, but now it stretches out from her, taut and enormous, curving like an egg.

Sango-san will sometimes take Rin's hand and press it against her belly and ask, "Do you feel it, Rin-chan?" and like magic, Rin feels something moving and pressing against her palm.

"Yes, it's moving! Is that your baby, Sango-san?"

"Yes." And Sango-san smiles, a warm curve of her lips.

But Rin's favourite part is when she presses her ear against the warm dome of Sango-san's belly, and listens to the quick pattering of the baby's heart. When she has her face pressed so close, Rin whispers stories to it, telling it of adventures with a magnificent and beautiful youkai and another not-so significant or beautiful youkai.

When Sango-san asks Rin why she is crying, she just smiles and says nothing.

* * *

Rin does not like Inuyasha. He is loud and rude and says not-nice things about Sesshoumaru-sama, even when Rin is listening.

He comes and goes without warning, often bringing the large and stinking corpses of youkai, which he gives to Sango-san, who examines them with delight, exclaiming excitedly over each dismembered limb. Rin just wrinkles her nose and breathes through her mouth. (Sango-san has very strange tastes, she thinks.)

But one day, when Rin is sitting on the porch in the early glow of dawn, Kaede-sama still asleep and snoring, Inuyasha appears, bloodied and drenched in mud.

He tramps up the steps, reeking of swamp and other nasty things that Rin doesn't want to think about, and when he reaches the top he stops and looks at Rin (who is sitting oh so quietly and politely). He stares at her, which Rin thinks is rather rude, and for a time he is absolutely silent, until he suddenly says, "He's not coming back."

And then he walks away, mud squelching between his toes.

And it is for this that Rin dislikes him most of all.

* * *

It is autumn, the season of dying, which Rin will later come to think of as appropriate, when Sango-san gasps and grabs Rin's hand and says, "Go get Kaede-oba-san."

Rin runs so hard that her heart feels as if it will hammer a hole right through her chest, and she has only to stand in the doorway, gasping, for Kaede-sama to gather herself as fast as her old body will allow. Rin only takes the time to gulp a few breaths, before she is off running again, pounding down the temple steps all the way back to Sango-san and Miroku-sama's house.

Sango-san is pacing across the floor when Rin rushes, breathless, into the room. Sango-san looks up at her and smiles, but is suddenly seized by an invisible fist and doubles over, groaning.

Rin rushes to her and clasps her hand, and Sango-san grips Rin's so tight that she has to bite her lip, her small fingers bruising.

When Kaede-sama arrives, huffing and creaking like a saddle, Sango-san is sitting on her futon, pouring sweat. Rin crouches next to her, still holding her hand, encouraging her when the unseen vice grips her body and it clenches and shakes. Rin whispers soothing things, rhymes and songs, snatches of memories that only come to her fully in dreams.

Rin holds Sango-san's hand, terrified, and when Kaede-sama slides open the shoji she nearly pisses with relief.

"Rin, go fetch clean linens and heat up as much water as you can carry," Kaede-sama tells her briskly, before squatting between Sango-san's spread knees. Rin's eyes and mouth go round when the old miko pushes Sango-san's legs further apart and reaches between them with her wizened hand. Sango-san clutches her blanket and grits her teeth.

"Rin, go!" Kaede-sama barks.

She does, almost fleeing from the room, but she has to squat outside the house before fetching the water, her own legs quaking so that hot urine splashes her thighs.

When she returns with two full buckets, sloshing at her sides, both Miroku-sama and Inuyasha are sitting outside on the porch, the monk muttering prayers with closed eyes, while the hanyou glares straight ahead without seeing. At the sound of Rin stumbling up the steps, both eyes snap towards her and she trips. Inuyasha snatches the buckets from her before they fall, and somehow catches her by the back of her collar, leaving her dangling awkwardly from his grip.

"Oi, kid, watch where you're going," he says, setting her upright. He turns, buckets still in hand, and walks into the house, leaving Rin gaping. Quickly she snaps her mouth shut and runs after him, though not before throwing Miroku-sama a smile, who is now standing, his one hand clutching his staff, the skin stretched white over his knuckles.

Rin enters the birthing room just as Sango-san screams, "Get out!" and Inuyasha splutters and then tears from the room, leaving the buckets on the floor, water spilling over the sides from being dropped in such haste.

"Rin, go heat the water and bring the sheets, now!" Kaede-sama bellows, snatching Rin from her stupor. She grabs the buckets and rushes from the room.

Yet Sango-san's baby is slow and stubborn, the labour lasting long into the night. Rin helps Sango-san traverse the room, one side to the other, so often that Rin thinks it is almost like old times.

When the baby finally comes, the moon is bright and round in the sky, and it hangs in the window like a lantern.

Rin squats behind Sango-san, holding her up and praying and praying (even though she is not quite sure how, but then Rin always preferred to make up her own prayers anyway). She is distracted from them, though, as Sango-san tenses against her and bears down hard, her fists twisting in her sheets.

Kaede-sama pulls it from Sango-san's body, a blood-slick creature, limp and silent as a doll. A lumpy cord is wound around its neck, and to Rin it looks sickeningly like a snake.

Sango-san collapses onto Rin, her muscle and bone melting inside her so that her limbs slacken and her head lolls, her body hot and heavy. Her eyes are closed, and Rin is glad, for she cannot see how ugly her baby is. Rin eases her down on the futon, sliding out from under her, but Sango-san grabs her wrist suddenly, stopping her.

"Rin-chan…Kaede-oba-san, how is…" but she is so tired that the words trail into gasping breaths.

Rin looks to Kaede-sama, but the old woman is bent over the child, which she has wrapped in the fresh sheets Rin fetched for her. She raises her eyes and beckons to Rin, whose wrist slips from Sango-san's grip easily when she stands. Kaede-sama places the tiny bundle in her arms, and Rin sees its face is mottled purple and red. It is hideous, but Rin feels a tightening in her throat, and the tiny body weighs heavily in her arms as she hands it to Sango-san.

She takes it mutely, but as she stares at her son Rin hears her whisper, "Why must he be taken from me too?"

* * *

Sango-san is abed with fever for several days, and Rin sleeps beside her at night, curled against her feverish heat. She awakes every morning, sweating, and relieved.

On the morning of the first day, Rin is in the next room, folding clean blankets for Sango-san, whose sheets are always sticky with sweat. The shoji to Sango-san's room is open just enough for Rin to see her and the even rise and fall of her chest, which she checks often, just to be safe. But now Sango-san is awake, her hands resting at her sides, staring at the ceiling.

Rin is very quiet, so she knows that she is not supposed to see when Miroku-sama enters the room, lays down his head on Sango-san's breast and weeps.

* * *

Kaede-sama tells Rin that there will be other babies, that Sango-san is young and strong and healthy, and that these sorts of things happen all the time. She tells Rin she must help Sango-san get better and move on, and so she brings Sango-san with her to lay flowers on her baby's grave when she is recovered enough to walk.

But as they near it, Rin sees a squatting figure dressed in red already there, but it turns and, seeing them, rushes off towards the forest, leaping into the trees.

There are already flowers there when they reach the little mound of earth, and Rin stares off into the forest, gaping.

"Inuyasha put these here?" she asks stupidly, already knowing the answer.

Sango-san smiles, though it is still sad and unsteady. She kneels and adds the flowers she and Rin have picked to the ones already lain before her son's grave. Inuyasha's flowers appear to have been ripped from the ground, their roots still clumped with dirt. Sango-san touches one softly with a finger.

"Inuyasha is not so bad as you may think, Rin-chan," she says, looking up at her. "He has a good heart, but it has been hurt many times."

Rin feels her cheeks heat with shame, and she lowers her eyes. "Oh."

"He is used to surviving though. Like all of us." Sango-san looks down at the grave again, her fingers softly tracing the leaf of a flower.

Rin shifts uncomfortably. "Did someone hurt him?" she finally asks, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Sango-san looks directly at Rin. "Someone left him," she says, and Rin feels her mouth go dry.

* * *

The path has not been tread upon by human feet for some time, and the forest has begun to take it back, creeping over it with roots and plants, but Rin picks her way through it easily.

The clearing almost takes her by surprise, but he is there, sitting against the old well, his precious sword resting against his shoulder. Rin does not hesitate but walks directly to him, seating herself down next to him, even though he raises an eyebrow and stiffens at her closeness.

For a time they sit there, neither speaking, he because he is too stubborn, and she simply because she likes the silence. She leans her head back against the well and breathes in the smell of rotting leaves and frost. The wind nips at her face, and she huddles more tightly inside her thick kimono.

"Oi, kid, what the hell did you want already?"

She opens her eyes, slightly surprised, and looks at him.

"Well?" He glares at her impatiently.

Slowly, she says, "I wanted to apologize. For thinking you were so mean. I didn't understand. I'm sorry."

He stares at her. Shocked.

Rin gets up, and leans over the edge of the well, staring into its depths. "Is this where she went?" she asks, looking back at him, and his entire body goes rigid. She sits back down, hugging her knees to her chest.

"She didn't want to leave, did she?" she says, not really meaning it as a question. Inuyasha continues to stare at her.

"She left because she had to, even though she didn't want to, right?" she adds. "She didn't want to leave you, but she knew it was the best thing for both of you. Right?"

He gulps, and she sees the ball in his throat move up and then down. He nods, just once.

Rin smiles at him, then, and it takes him so off guard that he starts.

She glances at the sky, and sees that the afternoon light is already fading. She gets to her feet, briskly wiping dead grass and leaves from her hakama. She turns to Inuyasha and extends a hand to him, smiling again.

"Come on," she says happily, "Kaede-sama is making stew, and it should be ready by the time we get back."

He continues to look at her as if she is an foreign thing, not knowing what to make of her. But when she laughs and grabs his hand, he lets her pull him along with her, and they walk back along the abandoned path together.

Inuyasha's hand is warm in Rin's, and her heart feels light, nearly weightless in her chest, each beat a brush of butterfly wings.


End file.
